Hey everyone, I'm having trouble with my thumb drive—it doesn't show up in Windows 11 after I used it to install Arch Linux. Now I'd like to use it again to install something like Fedora or Mint. I've already tried all the solutions I found on YouTube, and it's super frustrating! I got a bit of help from someone, but after trying to format it, I got an error saying 'Windows was unable to complete the formatting.' Anyway, I've managed to solve it now by going into disk management and assigning a new drive letter. Thanks for any advice!
5 Answers
Have you thought about installing Ventoy on it? With Ventoy, you can just drop in ISO files from different distros and use them for live boot or installation without needing to format it each time.
I’ve never really liked the app, though! Why does it come in a zip file? Couldn’t the developers just make it a single .exe file like Rufus?
Just a heads up for the future, tools like RUFUS and 'Fedora Media Writer' can revert a USB back to a standard Windows data USB. It's mentioned in the Rufus FAQ, so you might want to keep that in mind for next time!
You can also go into cmd, type `diskpart`, and list your disks. Select your flash drive and type `clean` to format it. That should do the trick!
It worked! But now I'm still getting a message saying 'Windows was unable to complete the formatting.'
It sounds like you'll indeed need to reformat your USB stick to use it like normal again. Using something like Rufus could help with that!
It shows up in disk management but I can't do anything with it.
If your USB appears in Disk Management, you should try reinitializing or reformatting it. If it’s not showing up there, open the Terminal as an administrator, type `diskpart`, then `list disk` to find your USB. Select it with `select disk N` (replace N with your USB's number) and then run `clean`. After that, just go back to Disk Management to reformat it as usual. Good luck!
Did you really ask ChatGPT to help someone else? That's so distasteful; you really ruined my day.
I used to love Ventoy, but I've had issues with it lately. It’ll let you add any ISO, but good luck getting them to actually install.